How the CPC keeps reforming itself to break the rise and fall cycle

Editor's Note: As the Communist Party of China (CPC) approaches the 105th anniversary of its founding, on July 1, CGTN presents "How the Communist Party of China Works," a special series of in-depth news analyses. This series offers a systematic analysis of the CPC's sustained effectiveness, examining its institutional resilience, people-centered philosophy, and global significance.

This year marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the world's largest ruling party with more than 100 million members.

What has enabled a political party that started with only about 50 members in 1921 to not only survive but also succeed in maintaining long-term governance vitality despite fast-changing domestic and global challenges?

To that question, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has offered and acted on a new answer: self-reform of the Party.

How to defy the rise and fall cycle

In his 2026 New Year message, Xi revisited a question first posed about 80 years ago in a cave dwelling in Yan'an, the CPC's former revolutionary base: how to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall and sustain long-term governance.

To this well-known "cave-dwelling conversation" between Mao Zedong and acclaimed educationist Huang Yanpei, Mao had offered the first answer – placing the government under the supervision of the people.

Xi, who has repeatedly quoted the dialogue as a warning of the complicated and long-term risks faced by the governing CPC, added a second answer: the Party must carry on its self-reform.

These two answers, external oversight by the people and internal self-reform, are fundamentally intertwined, as Xi further explained at a plenary session of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) back in 2022.

"Over the past 100 years, the Party has ensured its lasting vitality and robust growth by relying on developing people's democracy and accepting public scrutiny from outside the Party, and on strengthening self-governance and self-reform within the Party," he said.

In short, Xi likens self-reform to "using a surgical knife to eliminate the Party's ailments." "The Party is great not because it never makes mistakes, but because it always owns up to its errors and has the courage to confront problems and reform itself."

How the CPC keeps reforming itself

While there are over 6,000 political parties worldwide, more than 60 of which have existed for more than a century, a defining feature that distinguishes the CPC from others lies in its courage in undertaking self-reform.

In Xi's view, an important reason why the Party remains so vital and vibrant despite having undergone so many trials and tribulations is that it practices effective self-supervision and full and rigorous self-governance.

The eight-point decision, a set of rules adopted by the Party leadership in December 2012 to address chronic bureaucratic issues, including official privileges and extravagant banquets, has been widely regarded as a turning point in the Party's governance.

In 2025, for example, national disciplinary inspection authorities investigated 150,000 cases involving hedonism and extravagance, plus 141,000 cases of formalism and bureaucracy, and 376,000 people received disciplinary penalties for violating work style rules.

Such tangible outcomes have won wide public recognition. A 2025 national survey by China's National Bureau of Statistics showed that 95.5% of respondents affirmed the effective implementation of the eight-point decision, while 92.2% were satisfied with improved Party and government conduct, which has driven better social morals.

To address corruption, which Xi called "the most significant threat" to the long-term governance of the Party, the CPC has also launched an unprecedented anti-corruption campaign.

The anti-graft campaign has maintained its relentless momentum, targeting officials at every level, from low-level "flies" to high-ranking "tigers," while advancing efforts to repatriate fugitives and recover misappropriated funds in "fox hunting" operations.

According to the CCDI, 181 officials registered at and supervised by the CPC Central Committee were investigated last year, 983,000 individuals involved in corruption handed disciplinary or administrative penalties, and 963 corrupt fugitives repatriated to China during the year.

The CPC has also stressed that its self-reform will never stop. As Xi has urged, all Party members must bear in mind that full and rigorous self-governance is an unceasing endeavor and that self-reform is a journey to which there is no end.